Emerson's 'Nature', paralogy, and the physics of the sublime

While Emerson has generally been read as an exemplar of a transcendental sublime, the electromagnetism of Faraday inspired him to embrace an alternative sublime vision wherein matter is a field of electrical force, not part of a spiritual whole. Emerson's Nature struggles between these two versions of the sublime. Though the essay is about(in content) the harmony of spirit, it is (in form) a field of paralogical force.